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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29347515">Serendipity</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TacticianLyra/pseuds/TacticianLyra'>TacticianLyra</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Secret Saturdays</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Argost should be a warning tag by himself, Dissociation, Drew is Emotionally Illiterate, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, archive warning is mostly for safety but there will be some canon-atypical violence, she gets better at understanding things though, the Mondays are a toxic family and it will show</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:28:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,712</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29347515</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TacticianLyra/pseuds/TacticianLyra</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which one event nearly lost to history goes down a little differently, and changes more than a few things.</p><p>(Alternatively, canon took a step back and to the left so that it's cryptid mom instead of cryptid child—but there's still cryptid child, and that's where everything really goes off-rails)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Doc Saturday/Drew Saturday, Doyle Blackwell &amp; Doc Saturday &amp; Drew Saturday &amp; Fiskerton Saturday &amp; Zak Saturday</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Overture</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Rewritten from the original. Warnings at the end.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Had someone told Solomon a few years ago that he would’ve ended up married to someone many considered a pariah at one time, he would’ve given them a strange look. And yet, here he was, charging into a veritable house of horrors with his wife and forty-eight others.</p><p>Andrea Blackwell, or Drew as she was more often referred to as, had been one of the strangest people he’d ever met, at first glance. For one, her hair was completely white, with none of the adverse effects bleaching would bring.</p><p>(Leucism, someone would have overheard from someone else somewhere. <em>Extremely </em>rare in humans.)</p><p>For another, she was fluent in at least five languages, and conversational in several more. And one of those languages was <em>Sumeric</em>.</p><p>But the strangest thing of all was that she’d seemed…well, <em>emotionless</em>. She’d never spoken in any tone other than what might as well been an auditory pane of glass, even when she’d <em>completely decimated his thesis</em>, and never even really showed a <em>reaction </em>to anything. So it had honestly been surprising when one of the more reclusive students of the college—one of the few from overseas—had started spending more time around her.</p><p>And she didn’t smile. At least, not often. He wasn’t sure what had caused her to that first time he saw it, but the instant he had, that was <em>that</em>.</p><p>It had taken effort, to actually get to know her, but it had all been worth it. He was pretty sure he was the first person in that institution to hear her <em>laugh</em>, and that sound by itself had made his <em>week</em>.</p><p>Things had just developed from there really, especially after her—perhaps oblivious—shutdown of the only other person that showed an interest in her.</p><p>(Leonidas Van Rook ended up being expelled from the college after being caught up in something <em>very illegal</em>.)</p><p>It was coincidence, in that their friend circles meshed well. Almost alarmingly so. Arthur didn’t hide that he found Drew off-putting, but she never seemed bothered. Paul had been initially intimidated, but hadn’t taken long to warm up to her. Miranda, on the other hand, had taken a bit longer to stop being short with any of them.</p><p>Coincidence, that the five of them had made enough of a name for themselves in their respective fields for an organization to reach out to them come graduation.</p><p>Maybe a year after that, he and Drew were married, and a few months after <em>that</em>, they’d learned that they had a child on the way.</p><p>Then came the excavation of one artifact that she’d become oddly fixated on ever since she’d heard of it. The first hint of it having been something more than <em>just a rock </em>was when it had slipped out of the pulley that had lifted it from the small chamber it had been sealed off into, and the impact with the ground had done…<em>something</em>. It had felt like a painless electrical shock, and at the most had just startled everyone—except for Drew.</p><p>She’d fallen unconscious for about an hour, and while the doctor that had been <em>immediately </em>called in had said both she and their baby were fine, she’d seemed dazed for the rest of the day.</p><p>And that day had ended with one of the worst possible people stealing that artifact, when the two of them had just gotten the first idea on what exactly it might’ve been.</p><p>Hence their current situation.</p><p>At least fifteen different people had tried telling Drew to <em>not be here</em>, three of them being the ones they knew more closely. She’d rebuked each and every one with a somber determination Doc didn’t often see from her.</p><p>They’d entered, with three others behind them, and things had gone wrong so, so fast. Doc barely had time to even <em>blink </em>before Oliver was…gone.</p><p>(Waheela were <em>notoriously</em> opportunistic and he’d been just a little too far for them to have reacted fast enough.)</p><p>They didn’t see what happened to Hugo. One moment he was there, the next there had just been the sound of <em>stone moving </em>and he was gone.</p><p>(There had been another sound, but one Solomon absolutely did not ever want to hear ever again.)</p><p>Neither he or Drew had any idea on what attacked Lily. Just that it looked feline, had brittle quills, moved quickly—and that said quills were <em>venomous</em>.</p><p>(Five minutes. That’s all it had taken. She hadn’t stopped screaming for the first three.)</p><p>Considering everything, it made too much sense that when the two of them finally made it to the room that held the Kur Stone, a segment of the wall slid aside to release five visibly-emaciated black shucks.</p><p>“Drew, take the stone and <em>run</em>,” he said quietly, moving himself between her and the canine cryptids, which were already starting to circle around.</p><p>“I’m not going to leave you here,” she retorted, the <em>sharpness </em>of the words being enough to startle him into turning—and that action alone should have killed him.</p><p><em>Should have</em>, because the frontmost cryptid lunged, only to stop short with a <em>frightened </em>yelp, its eyes shining orange. As were the eyes of its packmates, who were also cowering back. But what could have pulled that off?</p><p>That question answered itself, when he glanced toward his wife again, glacial-blue eyes identically aglow.</p>
<hr/><p>The explosion that followed the stone’s removal from its pedestal came from seemingly everywhere, and it was only through adrenaline-fast thinking that their landing wasn’t as bad as it could have been.</p><p>Drew assured him that she felt <em>perfectly fine </em>three times already—and it was something, the way she said it the third time, just the faintest hint of an edge that he’d never heard from her until now.</p><p>What mattered right at that moment was that they had the stone.</p><p>They had the stone, and they were the first ones to reach the planned rendezvous site. That was all it was. Everyone else was just a few minutes behind—there had to have been injuries, considering…there had to have been more than three casualties.</p><p>Arthur made it back third. His glasses were askew and his coat torn and he didn’t say a word.</p><p>Fourth was Henry, his grave expression saying all that there needed to be said without there actually being anything spoken at all.</p><p>Fifth and sixth were Agent Epsilon (not really a member of the Secret Scientists, more of a liaison from the “grey men” as they were called) and Paul. Epsilon was stoically silent, whereas Paul was stammering a few things Solomon couldn’t understand because it was all in Inuinnaqtun and at that point there was something cold sitting where his heart was.</p><p>It took several more minutes before Miranda appeared, there being a short shriek from Paul when he saw her for the same reason that Solomon was immediately alarmed, but Drew quickly relayed that…none of the blood was hers.</p><p>Ten minutes turned into twenty. The smoke kept rising from Weird World.</p><p>“We have to go,” Henry said quietly, solemnly. “If there was anyone else, we would have seen them by now.”</p><p>Arthur was still silent. There was a quiet sound from Epsilon that wasn’t quite a sigh. Paul had since also gone quiet, but his hands were shaking. Miranda didn’t seem to have registered what Henry had said, still staring straight ahead even though Drew was standing right in front of her.</p><p>Fifty down to seven.</p><p>They had the stone back, but at what cost?</p>
<hr/><p>The building was a small one, relatively close to Marseille, in France. It hadn’t been their initial choice, but their initial choice was no longer needed.</p><p>(Dr. Olivia Gonzales had been a budding expert in environmental science. <em>Had been</em>. Arthur wouldn’t say what happened to either her or Ethan or Xavier—but her lab had been the closest to where they’d been, and he hadn’t protested about the change of plans.)</p><p>There was something surreal about it all, and Drew wasn’t just referring to the decidedly-unpleasant feeling hanging heavily in her chest.</p><p>Doc was heading an emergency call with Agent Epsilon and the three members of the Secret Scientists that hadn’t participated in the raid—they’d gone in with fifty and walked out only with seven and that meant there were only <em>nine Secret Scientists left out of fifty-two</em>.</p><p>Drew bit her lip hard. No, she wasn’t liking this feeling.</p><p>Arthur had since locked himself in one of the guest rooms, and last she saw Paul was poking halfheartedly at a salad in the kitchen.</p><p>They all could have died in there. All of them, even the child that hadn’t even yet started to live, and it was at that thought that she heard a sound that may have come from herself.</p><p>Then there was that…incident, with the black shucks. That had been something indescribable, a rush of something nameless but exhilarating and everything had gone very <em>orange</em> and everything had been right-wrong and—and now she felt nauseous.</p><p>Doc had told her that she should probably try to sleep. She probably should. They <em>all</em> probably should, and she’d told her husband that much, and he’d said that he would <em>later</em>.</p><p>Drew trusted him, but she didn’t think he meant that.</p><p>Miranda was sitting next to her on the couch in the living room, still looking disconcertingly blank. It had taken a minute of gentle prodding to convince her to change out of the blood-covered jumpsuit.</p><p>Something was wrong and Drew had no idea how to fix it, and that alone was leaving her with a growing sense of…frustration? Was that the right word for it?</p><p>Not at her friend, though. <em>Never </em>at her friend. If anything she was frustrated at that <em>madman </em>for doing this to all of them—they’d planned the raid for when Argost wouldn’t have been there; there had been an advertisement for some event with him appearing in person on the other side of the world, so that had been the perfect opening.</p><p>Or so they’d thought.</p><p>A <em>perfect </em>opening wouldn’t have killed so many, let alone any.</p><p>That tight feeling was getting worse the more she was thinking about it. Maybe she should just <em>stop </em>thinking about it for now.</p><p>What did friends do for each other during a bad time? Drew hadn’t really thought about it up until now—and she was <em>regretting </em>not having thought about it at all until now.</p><p>Try as she might…nothing came to mind. Nothing, save for the time when she’d opened up a little about her own past (no parents who refused to call her strange and no brother who always went out of his way to try to make her smile) and while her friend hadn’t said a word throughout it, at the end she’d just given Drew a hug, despite being one of the most touch-averse people out there.</p><p>No response when the action was returned a few years late.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Set directly after the pre-canon WW raid, so the chapter features some freshly-traumatized people and one case of highkey dissociation.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Overture II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She missed their old house, but Doc had been right in saying that it was too small. Their new one was much bigger, had a dedicated child’s bedroom, and was right at the shoreline, coincidentally above a cliff large enough to fit a sizeable hanger into.</p><p>They still didn’t know what that strange—<em>power</em> of hers was, even with help from Dr. Odele and Dr. Pachacutec.</p><p>Henry helped too sometimes, even though it wasn’t safe. He was getting a new observatory built on top of a mesa out in Arizona.</p><p>So did Paul, when his work was slow; he was the only one seeing a therapist. His new geology team had to sign <em>a lot</em> of confidentiality papers, but Drew met some of them and they seemed supportive.</p><p>Arthur didn’t talk to any of them much anymore. Not that he’d done so before, either, but now it was even less. He was based out in Peru somewhere now.</p><p>No one had heard anything from Miranda for the past few months, not outside of the standard and <em>automated</em> “still alive” update. She was going to be stationed in <em>Antarctica</em> and Drew absolutely was <em>not</em> fond of that decision. It was too cold, too dark for half the year, and <em>too far away</em>.</p><p>And she wouldn’t answer any calls. Drew understood why, honestly, but it…hurt.</p>
<hr/><p>The anomaly did happen again. Twice, actually, the first being with a lone tapire-iaura—<em>thankfully </em>alone, they were vicious cryptids—and she was able to keep that link going long enough for Doc to bury their piece of the stone, and then again with an injured enfield.</p><p>The third time, she’d managed to tap into it by herself one night, after Doc had started insisting that she either stay on the airship, or just stay home.</p><p>(She couldn’t really bring herself to complain by that point. She was tired of being tired all the time, but there was still another three or so months to go.)</p><p>There was nothing around that she knew of, but the sixth sense that seemed linked with the anomaly still brushed against something.</p>
<hr/><p>Zak was small. Not dangerously so, but worryingly enough; he was born almost an entire month too early. He was the opposite of quiet, though. The doctors said that was a good thing.</p><p>Their baby’s crying hit her ears the wrong way but she loved him so, <em>so </em>much.</p><p>She wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with <em>that</em> emotion, at least. She loved her husband, and she loved her friends.</p><p>The anomaly was put out of mind for a year, then two. Then came the day when Drew learned very, very quickly what <em>fear </em>felt like when she realized abruptly that a wampus cat was looking just a <em>little too intently</em> at her son.</p><p>Not that it stayed long—it bolted the second <em>before </em>she’d started running at it with her sword, and left her with a fascinated toddler who, from then on, could be easily pacified when upset by her making her eyes light up.</p><p>Not long after that, Dr. Amano (their paranormal expert; the only reason Takuya hadn’t been present for the raid was because they’d been occupied with something else to the point of no one being able to get in touch with them) contacted them about having received a tip on a lab performing some <em>quite illegal </em>genetic experiments on what was currently only animals, and that same tip added up with the sudden disappearance of a number of tsuchinoko.</p><p>Most of the creatures experimented on didn’t survive long. The only one that <em>did</em> was a komodo dragon; being the closest genetic relative to the Japanese cryptid, it had adapted to the camouflaging trait almost <em>too </em>well.</p><p>He certainly couldn’t be released, and certainly couldn’t end up where the public could regularly see him.</p><p>Zak had been almost begging for a dog for the past month or so. A komodo dragon was not even <em>close </em>to being a dog, but…well, his face had lit up upon seeing the reptile, so that was that.</p><p>And apparently, Komodo had enough cryptid DNA to be <em>considered</em> a cryptid by the anomaly’s standards, when Drew had unintentionally been a little too forceful in telling him to get off the bed.</p><p>She’d apologized immediately and more than once but it had still taken the reptile a few days to look at her again.</p>
<hr/><p>Another two years, still no closer to understanding the anomaly but Drew had some semblance on knowing what feeling translated to <em>what emotion</em>, and their first in-person meeting since the siege came. Where there was once a full room, twenty in person and many others over video screens, there were now only eight, and that wasn’t lost on Drew.</p><p>But they were all there, so it was the first time in four years that she was seeing her friend in person again, but to say that Miranda looked tired would be putting it nicely.</p><p>Tired, generally <em>unwell</em>, and like she was barely processing what anyone else was saying, though it thankfully wasn’t anywhere near the hollow look she’d had back then, that night.</p><p>And in hosting the meeting, they really should’ve expected a certain little boy who didn’t like being told to stay out of certain rooms sneaking in at some point.</p><p>Paul’s face lit up at seeing the now-four-year-old, as Drew thought it would, and she saw a ghost of a smile on both Gerald’s and Henry’s faces. Anka glanced at him, and Arthur made a dry remark on the “surprise guest,” but that was it from them.</p><p>Zak himself was surprisingly quiet throughout the entire meeting, having claimed the empty chair closest to her and Doc, and didn’t get up until the first person (Arthur, predictably) had left.</p><p>Drew had taken the chance to waylay Miranda before she could leave too, but her friend was insistent in passively deflecting any attempts at a conversation, only stopping at noticing Zak. If the two of them hadn’t seen each other for nearly four-and-a-half years, of course she wouldn’t have even seen him until just now.</p><p>Zak was being <em>unusually </em>quiet.</p><p>A clearly-forced smile, and a quiet promise to call tomorrow morning so they could catch up, and then the physicist was gone.</p><p>Doc makes a solemn comment on it having gone smoother than he’d thought it would, once it was just the three of them.</p><p>Then Zak asked “Why was everyone sad?”</p><p>If any sequence of words could have felt like a knife to the heart in that exact moment, it was that one.</p><p>(And that had been the start of them both noticing that their son was uncannily perceptive of those around him. Human and cryptid alike.)</p>
<hr/><p>That wasn’t the end of it, of course. In going to investigate the Fiskerton Phantom, roughly seven months later, they’d found eponymous cryptid chased up a tree, an angry mob seemingly intent on hunting him down, and for a brief moment Drew had felt nothing but <em>contempt </em>for the townsfolk.</p><p>It was gone quickly enough, though the unwarranted unease she’d felt around Fiskerton had taken a few days longer to dissipate.</p><p>She <em>really </em>doesn’t want to think it went both ways but she didn’t miss how Fiskerton seemed to walk on eggshells around her for those first few days, but not around Doc.</p><p>Zak and Fisk had bonded at a breakneck pace, and neither she or Doc have the heart to separate them. Then again, they couldn’t exactly bring him back to where they’d found him—and as far as they could tell, he was the only of his species found.</p>
<hr/><p>There was a very small list of cryptids that Drew actively disliked, in that there were only two cryptids on that list, at the moment. There was the Loch Ness Monster, though that was less out of disliking it and more of being incredibly annoyed by it. They’d found concrete evidence of it existing, but they <em>still </em>haven’t made visual contact. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought it was <em>mocking </em>them!</p><p>The other one in the list was Tsul’Kalu. The long stare that the fabled hunter had fixed her with was enough to confirm that the disdain was mutual, if <em>initially</em> unwarranted.</p><p>Then he’d tried hurting her son. (The long stare he’d also given Zak had made her uneasy to begin with.)</p><p>And then he’d <em>half-blinded her husband</em>. As if trying to take vengeance on a <em>seven-year-old </em>for an <em>accident</em>, sacred site or not, wasn’t enough!</p><p>Doc had won in the end, both the fight and the cryptid’s respect, enough to have him leave his talisman as a prize, but if Drew ever caught him around their house again…it wasn’t going to end well.</p>
<hr/><p>She’d phased out using the anomaly as a means to distract Zak sooner than she’d thought she’d have to, so it wasn’t too surprising that he hadn’t remembered it.</p><p>He didn’t mention it past his sixth birthday, and with the constant stream of cryptid-related fieldwork they had, coupled with the fact that she and Doc were very careful to keep their son <em>away </em>from the dangerous ones that would require the usage of the anomaly, meant there wasn’t really much of a chance for him to <em>rediscover </em>it.</p><p>At least, not until a month or so after his eleventh birthday, specifically on the day they found out that Doc’s side of the family had tangled with a fairly nasty curse regarding the shark-god Dakuwaqa.</p><p>Then Fiskerton accidentally interrupted the ritual that would dispel the curse. Which led to the locals trying to sacrifice him to the aforementioned shark-god, which <em>then </em>decided to show up—and of course, her brave and <em>reckless </em>little boy decided to make an attempt at freeing his brother by himself. Ending with them both in the water.</p><p><em>With the giant angry cryptid-shark</em>.</p><p>Drew thought she was entitled to some panic-induced impulsivity there.</p><p>Though while she was all geared up to give Zak the scolding of the year for that stunt, the awestruck look on his face derailed that momentarily. “Mom—how did you <em>do that</em>?!”</p><p>“Well I—we’re working on that still, but <em>you’re still in trouble young man</em>,” she stammered. “<em>Never </em>do <em>anything </em>like that again, understand?”</p><p>“Okay mom—but can I do that too?”</p><p>Doc, who’d been coming onto shore behind him, paused at that. “I’m…not sure, sweetie,” Drew replied slowly. Something about that question felt <em>absurd</em>, almost, though she wasn’t sure why.</p><p>Zak frowned a little at that, giving her an odd look that was gone within a few moments, before asking “<em>Now </em>can I go jetboarding?”</p>
<hr/><p>Fiskerton was obvious enough.</p><p>Komodo had just enough tsuchinoko DNA grafted into him to count as a cryptid.</p><p>Thunderbirds kept a massive territory, so it wasn’t too surprising that their home was within one’s range. It didn’t come by very often, however.</p><p>Ergo, it didn’t explain the third <em>constant </em>presence. Not until two weeks or so after the events on Fiji, when early one morning an exhilarated shout nearly startled Drew into dropping her tea and actually <em>did </em>get Doc to jump, when Zak had come running up to them both with his eyes glowing golden, Komodo trailing behind him in a similar state.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Going to say now that updates on this are probably going to be slow at best and glacial at worst. Wanted to fit some more of Drew figuring out How To Emotion but nothing was coming to me. Might fit some things into a side-story though.</p><p>I also have a discord server that's got categories for a few different fandoms. It's also very very small rn in that it's just me and one other person. https://discord.gg/8nzMJXk7</p><p>Comments and constructive criticism are highly appreciated and might help kick my motivation out of hiding!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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